CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BREAKFAST
At last we were a family again. Tina and I and Tyler sitting at the breakfast table as Tyler asked innocently probing questions about the world around him. I nodded at Tina's wise answers and we smiled to each other, over glasses of orange juice and bites of Eggs Benedict, at secrets only the two of us shared. It was part of the bond which would never be broken, could never be understood by outsiders and only partly understood by those who had made similar life-long bonds. But ours was special, set apart, made in heaven.
Except for the unwanted stranger sitting with us, again, it was perfect. And if I ignored him long enough maybe the message would sink in.
He sat and stared and said nothing.
I turned my back. Tyler was telling Tina about a bug he'd seen on TV.
"It's like a worm," he was saying, "with a million legs. A stampede."
We laughed together, Tina and I, until tears came. "You mean a centipede."
Tyler, engrossed in a mouthful of Captain Crunch, shrugged as he chewed.
But the shadow remained, his eyes burning into my cheek like focused beams. I shot a glance; his eyes were big and dark, but passive. “What?”
I could have been the wind in the trees for all the attention it brought. He sat unmoved.
I glared. “Why are you still here?” I reached over quickly and pushed his shoulder.
His head moved slightly, the gaze focused. “Hmm?”
“Why are you here?”
His eyes were bemused. “Because you’re here.”
“What do you want?”
“I said I wouldn’t ask again. I won’t.”
“So you’re just going to shadow me the rest of my life?”
“You don’t have a life.”
“You know what I mean,” I said. “You’re going to follow me until...when? Until I do what you want? Until the sky melts?”
“Whichever comes first.”
“Why? Why should I leave my family and waste more precious time on things that will never change? To watch while society's refuge methodically destroy their lives while my family rebuilds theirs without me. You said one more time, check on her one more time, and I went back one more time. I’m done; with Jim, with Teresa, and with you.”
He nodded. “I understand. You don’t have to leave. Let me ask you one question.”
I waited. “What?”
“Didn’t you like Teresa even a little?”
“Like her?”
“Yes. Like her. Don’t you feel anything for her, besides revulsion? Can’t you see that she’s just a person, searching, like everybody else?”
“She’s not like anybody I ever knew.”
“You’re talking about the surface,” he said. “But you’ve seen deeper.”
I knew he was right. Hours before I had sought her out for the very things he spoke of. But I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. "I've been inside her soul. It didn’t get any better deeper.”
“You’ve spent time with her, you know her. You know her intimate thoughts.”
I winced. “Let’s not rehash those. I had almost purged them from my mind.”
He moved his body to face me. “But you know there’s more. She needs help. She deserves help.”
I threw my hands up, expelling air. “So do they? They need me, they need my time and my attention. Why does Teresa need it more?”
“It’s the sick who need a doctor.”
“Thank you, Confucius. All wisdom and no cookie. Look, Rollins,” I said. “I know what you’re saying. But I just don’t give a flying–“
”Careful.”
“Even here,” I said, “in eternity–maybe especially here--it seems like time is too precious a thing to waste. I don’t want to miss one second of Tyler growing up. Or Tina. I’ve given up so much already.”
“We all give up something.”
“Not as much as I have.”
“Many much more,” he said. “But compared to what we receive...”
"Maybe I don't see it that way," I cut in, then, tired of trying to hear two conversations, walked out of the kitchen and into the living room as he followed. "Look, Rollins, I'm not ungrateful. But there's a lot you left out, and a lot I could have known earlier without all these games."
"There are no games."
"Whatever you call this maze I'm in," I said. "There's a lot you still aren't telling me. I don't know how much I can trust you."
"You're not supposed to trust me."
My mouth fell open. “What do you mean, I’m not supposed to trust you?”
"Just what I said,” he said. “You’re not supposed to trust me. I don’t control what happens. And you can’t trust that what I tell you will work out the way you want it to. You just have to trust that it will work out, eventually.”
“Nobody has that much faith. Nobody should be asked to.”
“It’s not just faith. There’s also obedience.”
“Blind obedience.”
“At times. At times that comes first, faith comes later. But you know you’re going on more than that.”
“Yeah, well...now I’m here. Now I’m home.”
"Teresa needs you."
I snorted. "Now there's a broken record. What does she need me for? To make sure she’s treated with respect at her next gangbang? To bring the bucket to her corner the next time Jim smacks her around? I already told you about Jim’s little going-away present, so you don’t need me around to take care of her.”
"Trace, there's more to it than just her," he said. "Even I don't know all of it, but it's important that you stay with her. It's important not just for her, it's important to you. Understand?"
"No. How could I understand? You're not telling me anything. ‘Stay with her, stay with her.’ That’s all you ever say. I’ve stayed with her and I’m done. I’m not…dammit, I’m not going to watch her die.”
I stared out the window to the yard and beyond. The guy across the street was washing his car, as he had every day I lived there. Two boys walked together, bouncing a basketball back and forth, on the way to the park. A little girl pedaled her tricycle as her mother walked behind and gave encouragement.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I’ll go to her. But only if you promise that you'll stay here and make sure my family is safe."
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I've got other things to do."
He walked out the front door this time, and after taking a long look back to my family I did the same.
At last we were a family again. Teresa, sitting cross-legged on the bed, trying to find Nirvana as she stared down meditatively at the pink rose pattern of the bed spread. Perhaps she would find it there, near the thorns, between the stains.
I sat next to her, feet on the floor, ready to go but vowing to stay. It was part of the bond we had that, apparently, could never be broken or understood by outsiders, or even me. But ours was special, set apart, made somewhere not near heaven.
She was simply passing the time as she awaited her true love in that broken-down bungalow. She was waiting for her hero, her knight, the man of her dreams to come riding in and sweep her away to paradise.
So was my wife.
But neither fantasy would be realized. All they'd get and got were an inept extortionist and a two-bit private eye, retired. Maybe they deserved better, maybe so did we. But fate and a roll of the dice had cast us together...for better, for worse, forever.
So I sat with his better half while mine sat alone and we waited together like soldiers entrenched who've seen too much of the battle and walked too many miles and just want to go home but who know the war's not yet over and the enemy's still in the near dark and though you have much to say and time to sleep you do neither as you listen, listen, for the slog of footsteps in the mud.
Or the slam of the door.
And so it slammed and in he slogged, looking no better for the battle. He acknowledged Teresa with a glance and too
k a bag out of his coat pocket. "I'm sure I can trust you not to touch this." He smiled wryly as he knelt in the closet and stuffed it into his drywall safe.
Trust, I thought. The word of the day.
"I was worried."
"That I wouldn't come back," he said, "or that I would?"
She started to swing her legs off the bed and go to him, but she hesitated, unsure. I was sure; I wasn't moving.
"Let's get out of here," she said instead. "Today. Throw our stuff in a bag and--"
He took a step toward her and she stopped. He leaned close. "Where? Where are you going to go? With what money? And why?" He straightened. "This place is as good as any. Better than most."
Teresa stood up in front of him, grabbing his arm. "We'll die here."
He shook her off. "Then we'll die here."
She grabbed him again. "I'm afraid. We'll die here if we don't leave. I can feel it. We have to get out. I don't want to stay here another second."
His expression softened momentarily. He turned away. "I have things to do."
"Where are you going?"
"I have business."
"I'm going with you."
"We did this before. No."
"I am."
"Like hell." He put out his chest and bared his teeth. I half-expected a bellow.
"I am," she repeated. "I’m going with you."
"No." He turned.
She followed.
He stopped and turned, face red. "I said no." He cocked his right arm across his body.
Teresa didn't flinch.
He hesitated, then lowered his arm. "Oh, hell. Come on. But stay out of my way or, so help me, I'll break your nose."
They walked out of the bungalow as I sat on the bed, watching. There was no question, but still I considered.
Let them go, a voice said, my own. Let them destroy themselves without you. It's over. You've done all you can. You need rest. You're a private eye, tired and retired. Let them go.
I sat content with that for a moment before hopping off the bed. Rest, I knew, was for the living, and retirement seemed like a lifetime ago.